My life right now is in between being an American that is going for her Canadian Citizenship and waiting patiently for the Halifax office to acknowledge our paperwork with $$$ sent in January 2010. I was born in New York City many decades ago!
Today, thinking about the 9th anniversary after 9-11 and only 11 days before this American-Canadian moves to Beijing, China for 9 months. I remembered going to Boston for ActiveRain's Boston RainCamp this past July 2010 and taking photos of the Boston Federal Court Building outside, since they wouldn’t let me inside unless I had business there! I took photos of plaques outside the building that I really thought made me think about what being an American-Canadian really means. I’ve written this in two parts, since I want to discuss those 9 quotes from the Boston Federal Building.
The first plaque stated “ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL AND EVERY SUBJECT IS ENTITLED TO LIBERTY AND TO HAVE IT GUARDED BY THE LAWS. – William Cushing, 1783”
To me, that means all Americans, Immigrants & Visitors are entitled to liberty, justice and be protected by our laws. So when we, as a country, allow others to use bigotry & anti-religious connotations, we are definitely not following this principle. We should respect all cultures, religions & race!
The 2nd plaque reads, “MEN AND WOMEN WERE CREATED EQUAL, THEY ARE BOTH MORAL AND ACCOUNTABLE BEINGS, AND WHATEVER IS RIGHT FOR MAN TO DO IS RIGHT FOR WOMAN. – Sarah M. Grimke, 1937”
With this saying, we have come a long way from the 1920’s but we still have to pay equally to all men & women during the same job, with no difference in pay due to gender. This should include all medical studies also, we should do medical studies for both men & women and not just one gender.
The 3rd plaque is very relative to this last week of media coverage, “WHERE JUSTICE IS DENIED AND ANY ONE CLASS IS MADE TO FEEL THAT SOCIETY IS AN ORGANIZED CONSPIRACY TO OPPRESS, ROB AND DEGRADE THEM, NEITHER PERSONS NOR PROPERTY WILL BE SAFE – Federick Douglass, 1886”
My feelings with this last week between the protests on the building of a Islamic Mosque near 9-11 site in NYC & the Gainesville Christian Preacher who wanted to burn the Koran, makes me feel ill. We, as Americans are better than this. There are extremists in all religions and we shouldn’t condemn all the extremists as the majority of the religions, when they are a very small minority! We should never oppress, degrade or rob other people’s religions, cultures or countries, or we will NEVER be safe as a country!
The 4th plaque stated: “THE LAW IS THE WITNESS AND EXTERNAL DEPOSIT OF OUR MORAL LIFE. ITS HISTORY IS THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE – Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1897.”
This means to me, that if we don’t follow our laws, we don’t have much of a moral life as a nation. We, as a country of a variety of people, must always treat all people the same within the stating of our laws, since that is reflective of ourselves and our moral society. We must treat all war prisoners & convicts the same as we would want to be treated!
The leaders that wrote these quotes understood the constitution and probably studied the true meaning of the “Bill of Rights”. I will use this to guide me for the next year in Beijing and to represent all Americans & Canadians through respect & open thinking!
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